LORD Nelson’s dying wish that the state looked after his mistress and their daughter were ignored by the government.

The claims were made in a letter written Lady Emma Hamilton which is due to be sold at auction on Saturday.

After Nelson’s death at the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805, Lady Hamilton fell so deeply into poverty that she spent a year living in a debtors’ prison with her illegitimate daughter Horatia.

Although she was married to Sir William Hamilton she became Lord Nelson’s mistress and the three of them lived together in a bizarre menage-a-trois set-up that fascinated the nation.

Emma gave birth to Horatia in 1801 and Nelson and Emma used the cover-story of being her godparents because she was illegitimate.

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The Nelson Column stands tall in Trafalgar Square

My time is past for rendering them any more services and for those I did I have been so ill requited that I feel disgusted at their neglect and ingratitude

Colonel Sir Richard Puleston

On his deathbed on HMS Victory, Nelson repeated his plea to the government to care for Lady Hamilton and Horatia but instead the state chose to heap money on his brother and ignored the mother and child.

In 1811 she wrote to her friend Colonel Sir Richard Puleston, saying: “My time is past for rendering them any more services and for those I did I have been so ill requited that I feel disgusted at their neglect and ingratitude.

“I am occupied much in the education of my ward Horatia Nelson whom her glorious father did me the honour to appoint as her guardian and I think you will be pleased with her.

“I am satisfied with my pupil and I hope to see her all that her father wished her to be, however others may have neglected his sacred wishes I act as tho he could have wished me to have done.”

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Auctioneer Richard Davie, of International Autograph Auctions in Nottingham which is selling the letter, said: “It is a very emotive letter and it is clear from it how much she thought of Nelson six years after his death.

“It shows she was quite bitter about the way she had been treated since his death. “Letters by her are fairly scarce. This one is a particularly good example because of its content which references Nelson and Horatia.”